Faces – Five Guys Walk Into A Bar…

The Faces rank as one of music’s great conundrums. Their loose, high-spirited assault qualifies as the very essence of rock ‘n’ roll, and with a front line boasting Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and Ronnie Lane, they were among the most talented bands of the early ’70s. Yet their albums never entirely gelled; even their strongest studio release, A Nod Is As Good As Wink…To A Blind Horse, seems unduly patchy — ace material that nonetheless moves in fits and starts. Acolytes and apologists note their tremendous live rep, but their many, many bootlegs serve as much as a testament to their fabled drinking prowess as to their undeniable breadth and talent. And 1999’s single-disc distillation, Good Boys…When They’re Asleep, overly domesticates a unit whose accomplishments were inextricably intertwined with its excesses.

So this four-CD pile-up of official product and ephemera — rough tapes from their first and last sessions, rehearsals and outtakes, BBC performances and unreleased live material, many titles appearing in multiple versions — is an exercise in overindulgence, right? Well, yes and no. Faces keyboardist and unofficial curator Ian McLagan wisely eschews the chronological imperative, instead sequencing Five Guys as an extended house party, one track suggesting the next with an emphasis on momentum and flow rather than “coherence.” As a result, each individual disc proves stronger and truer than any of the band’s official product.

The collection’s third CD typifies McLagan’s rough magic. Bookended by two of Lane’s finest offerings, the knowing “You’re So Rude” and the elegiac “Ooh La La”, the disc leans heavily on live selections from Stewart’s solo catalog, notably a ferocious “(I Know) I’m Losing You” powered by drummer Kenny Jones’ unrelenting barrage. Elsewhere, the mix interweaves samplings from the group’s final session (including a good-spirited goof on the Beach Boys novelty “Gettin’ Hungry”), an organ-driven, Meters-inspired instrumental, an extended boogie-shuffle, and a just-right “Stay With Me”, highlighted by a charged build-and-release finale that effectively encapsulates the band’s in-concert dynamic.

The box’s other discs adopt a similar mix-and-match approach with only minor variations. The first opens with a string of album cuts and then samples liberally from Ooh La La session outtakes; disc four front-loads live performances and non-LP singles before taking its victory lap. Yet the seemingly casual sequencing only serves to highlight the package’s many unexpected gems: a live, roughed-up “Maybe I’m Amazed” that revitalizes McCartney’s too-cute radio staple; an intense, soulful rendition of the Luther Ingram classic “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right”; their sunny, lovestruck final single “You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything”. Together, the four discs weave a warm, intoxicating spell, with Stewart, Lane and Wood’s contrasting vocals serving a shared ethos, equal parts camaraderie, compassion and raw sexuality.

Mind you, this is a Faces compilation; anything approximating perfection would be a cheat. Though McLagan’s sure touch sparkles from disc to disc, there’s little flow across the set; essentially the box collects four of the same thing. And, not surprisingly given the band’s cavalier attitude toward arrangements, familiar riffs and melodies resurface perhaps too often over the package’s five hours. The obvious solution is a super-saturated single- or double-CD distillation, but the band’s singular gift has proven so difficult to capture before that any pruning might upset the uneasy balance of Five Guys. Thus, those craving a mere sampling from the pub-rock wellspring are SOL. And after all, a four-CD sprawl does seem an apt monument to a band that made a virtue of (that word again) excess.